Pastiche: Mitigation: Les Reves du Diable
by Miss Sera Dreavus
Summary: "Know your enemy," they say. They never said it would be pretty...


"Why don't we just kill her?" The voice was male, cold but plain-spoken, with a lilt verging on a hiss-- no one you'd want to meet in a dark alley.  
"What kind of excuse for a sadist are you? We have to break her first." This one was less exotic, but held no more emotion than the first.  
Lilly would have been protesting loudly if she were in any position to do so, or rather, if she were physically able to do so. Her very vocal complaints had inspired the gag in the first place, however, so her captors were unlikely to hear her out. They were being _very_ unaccommodating. There was plenty of room in the villains' deluxe four-bedroom suite at the inn in groveling Le Buque, but she'd been shoved roughly into a corner. As if a hostage like herself wasn't important enough to even look at! And the ropes binding her were itchy, too.  
"Once she's dead, it doesn't matter whether she's broken or not," the first man argued, if it was really arguing when he remained expressionless. "Watching humans squirm is fun, but their deaths are sweeter."  
The other shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you, Yuber? This can be a great tactical advantage. One of our enemies has fallen right into our hands. We need to be vile and ruthless, leave her body mutilated, soaked in blood and tears-- give the Fire Bringer something to wet their beds over."  
"Leave it to a Silverberg to put strategy before everything else," Yuber grumbled. He turned to give the seething Lilly a look that made most humans quail; this one only grew more enraged. "Fine then, let's get on with it. Or do you have anything _specific_ in mind?"  
The question was dripping in sarcasm, but Albert answered anyway. "I wouldn't presume to know more about pain than you. I think this girl will be a harder one to break emotionally than physically, though. You'll probably want to rape her at least."  
Yuber turned again to give him a decidedly disgruntled glare. At the same time, Lilly spontaneously gnawed through her gag and exploded at the men. "You want to _WHAT?!_"  
"You expect me to come on to... that?" the blonde protested with a gesture at his captive, ignoring her sudden outburst.  
"It can't be that bad. I'm sure you'll enjoy it as long as she won't."  
"Have you seen her _waist_? I'm not making it with anything that has love handles."  
"I DO NOT have LOVE HANDLES!"  
Also choosing to ignore Lilly, Albert adopted a look of infinite patience. "You're only making this harder, you know. If you don't want to have sex with the girl, I'll understand, but don't make up excuses."  
"What do you mean?" Yuber asked uncertainly, while Lilly growled something about his excuse being _damn well_ made up.  
"I've been meaning to ask you about this for some time now. Yuber... you don't want to have sex with _any_ woman, do you?"  
There was silence as Yuber looked away.  
"You mean he's _gay?_" Lilly gasped at last. The tension failed to break around her, but the strange scene continued on its own.  
"Why, what makes you think that, Albert?" The blonde devil was definitely uneasy now, uncharacteristically defensive.  
"It's so obvious. The way you constantly talk about killing, pain, chaos... it's clear that what you really want is some nubile young ass."  
"Well... so what if I do!"  
"He really _is_ gay?!" cried Lilly in astonishment.  
"You know you don't need to worry about what I think," Albert said quietly. "This is about you. If it's a part of who you are, you need to accept that."  
Yuber nodded quietly, looking abnormally moved. Lilly gaped, then changed her mind. "When did this turn into group therapy?" she demanded indignantly; impending rape, torture and murder aside, she liked her villains villainous.  
Albert looked straight at her for the first time in, well, ever. "Don't be rude, young lady. I remember how hard this was for me..."  
"_You're_ gay _too?!_"  
The strategist wisely returned his earlier strategy of ignoring their prisoner, instead gesturing for Yuber to sit at the heavy wooden table with him. "Come on, Yubie," he cajoled. "Let's chat; I promise it'll make you feel better." Yuber cringed at the nickname and sighed, but complied. "Okay, spill. Who would you most like to screw, out of all the Fire Bringer?"  
Yuber muttered something unintelligible and probably unflattering, and moved to stand back up. Albert quickly resumed his serious appearance and stopped him. "No, really! This is a great way to feel better about coming out. Luc did the same for me. It'll be fun once you get into it!"  
Lilly and Yuber sighed resignedly in unison. She was almost getting used to the world making no sense anymore, and he was becoming convinced, or at least nagged enough to act like it. He pouted some more but sat. Authoritatively, Albert pointed and said, "Take the hat off."  
"But then I can't do my demonic glare thing," Yuber whined demonically.  
"Exactly. You need to loosen up. Hat. Off. Now." With great reluctance, Yuber complied, carefully setting his wide-brimmed black hat on the table (as far from both Lilly and Albert as he could manage) and looked dubiously at the cup of coffee Albert had procured from who-knew-where and slid across to him. "So tell me, baby. Who's hot?"  
"Lemme think," Yuber said as he mysteriously produced his own drink, a silver flask of vodka, generously spiked the coffee, and gulped it. Into the cup, he continued, "Well, y'know that one dark-haired kid?"  
"Which one?"  
"I don't know. I think he's that floozy witch's apprentice."  
"Rody?!" Lilly burst out. If the world hadn't been making sense before, it was now falling apart completely.  
"Yeah, him."  
"Not bad, not bad at all," Albert murmured appreciatively.  
"I'll bet he's great in the sack."  
"That's HORRIBLE!" Lilly protested. "Although actually, I think Estella wouldn't mind arrang-- but _ewwww!_"  
"Sexuality is a beautiful thing," Albert said calmly, without looking at her. "Who else?"  
"Hmm... maybe that new Flame Champion kid..."  
"HUGO?!"  
"Ooh, ooh, even better; that little guy who's running the castle."  
"_Thomas?!_" Lilly squawked. _Cecile's gonna kick his ass!_ she added mentally, to the extent that she could still form coherent sentences, anyway.  
"Oh yeah, he's hot!" Albert agreed. "Is that all? No one who's actually legal?" he teased. "Like you aren't the master of weird fixations," Yuber countered.  
There was another uneasy pause. Lilly blinked. "What do you mean?" she asked, though deeply suspecting that she did not really want to know.  
Yuber finally looked at her. "He's hot for his brother," he explained.  
"_CAESAR?!_" she shrieked, with such force and such astonishment that she actually fell over onto her front. It was hard to get back up with her arms tied, but she wasn't thinking of that anyway. "What the hell is _wrong_ with you people?! _He's_ your brother, and everyone else you've named is half your age and doesn't _swing_ that way! Can't you just get back to destroying the continent like you're _supposed_ to?!"  
Albert stood, very dramatically. "There's nothing wrong with gay, incestuous lust! I may not get along with Caesar now, but that means nothing to my true feelings. We're obviously meant for each other. In light of that, what does it matter if I want to boff my brother?"  
"You too?" Luc asked as he entered the room. "High five!" And high five they did.  
"Oh my god," Lilly groaned. "You're telling me _all_ of you... Wait, who's your brother?"  
"Why, my dear Sasa-chan, of course." Ignoring Lilly's next shocked outburst, Luc turned to address the others. "Who's the broad?"  
"She's one of the Fire Bringer," Albert explained, as Yuber took advantage of the distraction to recover his hat. "Millie or something. She unwittingly stumbled into our inn, and now we're going to rape and torture her, only we can't because we're both gay."  
"Oh, I guess I won't be any help then. Hey, so you're out now, Yuber? Good for you!"  
Albert was cheerful. "That's right! Now you can join Luc and me in our weekly yaoi liaisons!"  
"Huh? I thought he already was," said Luc. "Then who was that last night?"  
"...This can't be real. This is some sort of seriously messed-up dream I'm having," Lilly moaned into the floorboards. She sighed and looked back up. "How can Luc be gay, anyway? Didn't he have something with that Sarah girl?"  
All three men looked at her now. "...Who?" asked Luc.  
"You know, that spellcaster lady you had every time we fought you before! Albino chick, man-dependent magic-using staff-wielding type?"  
The three thought hard. "Ohhhh, THAT Sarah!" Luc exclaimed suddenly. "Yeah, what ever happened to her? I think she just kinda conveniently disappeared around the time I realized I was in love with Sasa-chan..."  
"That's a good question," Albert mused. Yuber finished adjusting his hat and chimed in: "Maybe she's dead!"  
"Maybe. Too bad. She'd be able to solve our rape problem."  
Lilly's eyes bulged. "You mean _she's_--"  
"No," said Luc, "but she'd do what I say."  
If anyone had a response to that, they never got a chance to give it, as at this point the door was broken down. At the same time, Lilly heard a light thud behind her, then a blade on her ropes; Hugo was cutting her free. Which meant this was her rescue squad! She took a quick glance at the empty doorway framing the heroic silhouette of-- well, it was Gadget Z. There looked to be more people behind him, so it would do. "Finally! I thought you'd never get here!" she bitched happily.  
Luc looked warily at the party now filing into the room. "Damn, we can't waste energy on a fight now," he pouted. "We'll have to pull back!"  
He was met with a long silence. "I think Sarah always did the teleport thingy for us," Yuber pointed out.  
"I don't care! Do it anyway!" Apparently someone other than Sarah _could_ teleport, because the floor finally started glowing and rippling, and the villains sank through it.  
Lilly stood, smiled briefly, then put her hands on her hips and faced her allies to take stock. Besides the first two, there was Emily (punching the air fiercely), Fred and Rico (he was saying something about the never-ending hunt for evil, and she nodded, looking exhausted), and a smirking younger Viki (who looked like she knew how the rest of the scene would play out and was prepared to enjoy it). She turned back to Hugo. "Where are Reed and Samus? They must be worried sick about me!"  
The new Flame Champion, son of the fierce Karaya clan's chief, smiled nervously and said, "Uh, I think they're in the bath."  
Lilly twitched, but kept her composure. "I suppose they must be tired. When I was captured, I'm sure they made all haste for the castle to organize a rescue. They're so out of shape..." she trailed off as the others looked at each other.  
"Actually, I don't think we would have found out about this at all if people hadn't started wondering how they got time off, right?" Emily said tactlessly.  
Lilly fumed the rest of the way home (that is, the distance from the inn to a clearing where the Blinking Mirror could be used safely)-- though Emily tried to make it up to her, being not only somewhat responsible for Lilly's mood, but also the only person brave enough to approach her. "Come on, it wasn't so bad! Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, you know! I know you; I bet you weren't scared for a second!"  
"_Scared?_" Lilly echoed. "...Those people... are absolutely nothing to be scared of." With that, she burst out laughing, as Emily shrugged helplessly at her companions. They all edged a little further away from Lilly and kept going.  
On the plus side, Samus and Reed didn't get chewed out really at all as much as they'd expected for leaving their boss to die. And Cecile's fighting spirit was tripled, though no one ever explained the reason why to Thomas. That was probably for the best. 


End file.
